Concise Bible Dictionary:
Images were of two descriptions: they were cut or hewn out of a block of stone, and fashioned into some likeness. Dagon, the god of the Philistines, had face, head, and hands, being, as is supposed, half fish and half man (1 Sam. 5:3-4). The gods made of a tree were also doubtless wrought, at least rudely, in the form of some living or imaginary creature. But there were also MOLTEN IMAGES, as the golden calf, which was first cast and then shaped more exactly with the graving tool (Ex. 32:4; compare Acts 17:29). Yet Israel had been expressly forbidden to make “any graven image” to bow down to or to worship (Ex. 20:4-5). The Gentile also, led on by Satan, made his own god, and worshipped it, turning his eyes away from God’s “eternal power and divinity” which are manifest in His works (Rom. 1:20-23).